OUR DAILY BREAD : THE GREATEST RACE

[cimi]

August 8
Friday


THE GREATEST
RACE

READ:
1 Corinthians 13
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Love never fails
__1 Corinthians 13
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As the Olympic Games open in Beijing, my thoughts go back to Eric Liddell, a former champion immortalized for his surprising gold medal victory in the 400 meters during the 1924 Games in Paris. A year after his triumph, Liddell went to China, where he spent the last 20 years of his life as a missionary teacher and rural pastor. There he ran the greatest race of his life against opponents we all know__difficult circumstances, war, uncertainty, and disease.

Crowded into a Japanese internment camp with 1,500 other people, Eric lived out the words he had paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 13:6-8__ "Love is never glad when others go wrong, Love finds no pleasure in injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Love is always slow to expose, it knows how to be silent. Love is always eager to believe the best about a person. Love is full of hope, full of patient endurance; love never fails."

Eric served the others in camp, whether carrying water for the elderly or refereeing games for the teens. When he died of a brain tumor in February 1945, one internee described him as a man "who lived better than he preached."

In life's most difficult race, Eric Liddell crossed the finish line victorious through love. __David McCasland
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````````````````````O for a love that knows no end,```````````````
````````````````````A love that is strong and pure,````````````````
``````````````````Reaching after to both foe and friend,````````````
````````````````So deep it will always endure. R. De Haan``````````
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Love enables us to walk fearlessly
to run confidently, and to live victoriously

****************Today's Bible Reading __ 1 corinthians 13**********

1 Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love, I have
become sounding brass or a
clanging cymbal. 2 And
though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge,
and thoughI have all faith, so
that I could remove
mountains, but have not love,
I am nothing. 3 And though I
bestow all my goods to feed
the poor, and though I give
my body to be burned, but
have not love, it profits me
nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is
kind; love does not envy; love
does not parade itself, is not
puffed up; 5 does not behave
rudely, does not seek its own,
is not provoked, thinks no
evil; 6 does not rejoice in
iniquity, but rejoices in the
truth; 7 bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But
whether there are prophecies,
they will fail; whether there
are tongues, they will cease;
whether there is knowledge,
it will vanish away. 9 For we
know in part and we
prophesy in part. 10 But when
that which is perfect has
come, then that which is
in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke
as a child, I understood as a
child, I thought as a child; but
when I became a man, I put
away childish things. 12 For
now we see in a mirror,
dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then
I shall know just as I also am
known.

13 And now abide faith,
hope, love, these three; but
the greatest of these is love.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INSIGHT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

In a letter filled with correction, we find this marvelous passage on
the characteristics of true love. It has been said that if we replace the
word love with the name Jesus Christ, we see in 1 corinthians 13 a
beautiful portrait of the character of the Son of God. __Bill Crowder